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'Fine line’ between potential No. 1 picks Patrick and Hischier

Brandon Wheat Kings’ Nolan Patrick, left, and Rouyn-Noranda Huskies’ Anthony-John Greer are separated as they scuffle during the Memorial Cup in Red Deer, Saturday, May 21, 2016. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)

BUFFALO — Unless you count chin-ups and up-chucks, there wasn’t a lot to separate would-be No. 1 picks Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier in their only head-to-head competition before the NHL draft.

The whole first round might carry that story line as well.

After a week of interviews from 31 teams, centres Patrick and Hischier were running, jumping, lifting and hard-pedaling through various testing stages of Saturday’s final day of the scouting combine. Most observers were ready to cut Patrick some slack here as he came off a season of two sports hernia recoveries and, indeed, the dreaded Wingate test measuring maximum stationary bike speed against resistance had him groping for a bucket. He had the added pressure of scouts and GMs watching him labour while a marine drill sergeant-type was barking in his ear to go faster.

“That was pretty terrible,” Patrick grinned after the colour returned to his face. “I felt pretty zonked afterwards and my breakfast didn’t stay down. It’s pretty weird to say I wanted to do the Wingate, but it was fun.”

Patrick was pleased with his other scores, except the high bar when the Swiss-born Hischier and others had excelled ahead of him on the monitors.

“It was tough when you’re about to do chin-ups, you see the top of the leader board and think ‘I have to put some up here’,” Patrick joked. “(Hischier) did 13, I did 11. He’s probably going to think he has the edge on me now. But I’m not competing against him and I don’t think it’s that way for him either.”

As the two centres, from the Brandon Wheat Kings and Halifax Mooseheads, respectively, duelled on the floor, the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia Flyers assessed what this week’s results could mean to their final decisions. Both the Devils, who won the draft lottery, and the Flyers, who choose second, have Patrick coming to their cities for a final medical evaluation.

After a 107-game grind in 2015-16, Patrick developed one hernia and then a second that was undetected and not repaired at first. NHL Central Scouting was ready to rank him just below Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine, had he been born a few days earlier and qualified for the 2016 draft and despite his setbacks CSB gave the 6-foot-3 Patrick a slight edge over the shorter and lighter Swiss counterpart this year.

“He has a year more of physical maturity than most who are here,” Central Scouting director Dan Marr said. “He was never 100% and credit to him for getting through the year as he did.

“They’re two different players, but the impact they’re going to have in the NHL will be similar. It’s a fine line between them. But we get to spend a lot of time with them. They’re both high-character players. Coaches like that because those guys don’t require any maintenance.”

After two drafts where Matthews and Connor McDavid were so hotly anticipated, Marr was wary of sounding like this crop will be a letdown. He said picks five through 25 will be the most interesting to monitor once the first round of the draft in Chicago is completed

“This class did not sort themselves out for the scouts,” Marr declared. “I think a lot of teams will be quite pleased, because there are 31 different philosophies going in and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a lot of (those drafting later) say ‘we got a guy who was ranked in our top 10’.

“We don’t get into predicting where the players will be drafted. That’s up to the teams. But the draft lottery (when the Devils moved up from fifth to first) made things topsy turvy for a few teams, who changed their focus.”

Devils GM Ray Shero says “there has been a buzz in the building from our entire staff ever since we won. Everyone in our organization; arena workers, vendors, you name it. There is an excitement about the draft. It’s an important time for our franchise. Sure it’s not a McDavid or Matthews’ draft, but we’re going to get a very good player.”

The Devils and Flyers have been long-time rivals, but other than Scott Stevens’ hit on Eric Lindros, there have been few flash points that came from star vs. star encounters. Both of these youngsters expect to hear a lot about their potential new homes in coming days.

“I know I’d like Philadelphia as a sports city,” Hischier said. “New Jersey, you talk to people and it’s really nice to live there and it’s right across from New York City. Both organizations are nice.”

QUESTION PERIOD

Whether asked what super hero they’d like to be, which historical figures they’d like to dine with or one of this year’s favourites — ‘Do you make your own bed?’ — NHL teams’ off-beat questions in draft combine interviews are still part of the show.

“Some teams try and throw you off, some don’t give you as much,” said Spokane centre Jaret Anderson-Dolan. “For the most part, teams are straightforward.”

Dan Marr, director of NHL Central Scouting, says that by now kids are prepped for something from left field.

“I don’t understand the background to some of them,” laughed Marr. “I’m sure it means something to the psychologists that are assessing them. But it’s just more information teams have in their arsenal when they make a decision on a player. It’s more along the lines of how they are going to handle coaching down the line and how their development process will work going forward.”